Teacher Leadership Standard 8 Reflection: presenting professional practices for the review of colleagues

Standard 8 Reflection: present professional practice for the review of colleagues

Background

Around ten years ago, our district approved a contract with teachers which provided additional professional development time that was divided equally between self- directed time, collaborative time, and  whole staff professional development in order to increase the collaboration in our school system. During this time we saw lots of growth in our teaching practices school wide. Unfortunately, it has been changed to being divide equally between self-directed time and district-directed time.  As a result we have seen less time for teachers to present their professional practice for the review of colleagues since teachers don’t want to give up their self- directed time and even though our principal has given up some of his district directed time for us to work in collaborative groups it is extremely limited.  As a result we are seeing teachers not presenting their professional practices for others to see as often.

Additionally, about 6 years ago, our newly hired secondary math coach, was able to get coverage for our classes from the district so we could visit other math classes.   Those who volunteered sat down with the math coach prior to the visit and planned out their lesson. Then on the day of the lesson, the math middle school teachers from both middle schools would meet with our coach prior to visiting the chosen classroom to talk through the lesson and discuss what we noticed and what we wondered. Then we would go visit the class and take notes as the lesson was presented to students. After the lesson, we would then return to the library where we would reflect on what we had seen with the teacher who presented, again sharing what we had noticed and what we wondered. We were lucky enough to go through this several times and rotate through most of the middle school math classrooms.  It was a great time to pick up other’s ideas as well as to reflect on making our instruc- tional practices better.

The following year, as we were working on best educational practices, we had the opportunity to work with a colleague of our choice to review each others learning targets and success criteria for a particular lesson.  Then go into each others’ rooms to observe each other teaching the lesson. Later, we would meet to reflect on the lesson presented. Unfortunately, due to cost as well as lack of guest teachers this practice only lasted a year.

Additionally, I have had the opportunity to share my professional practices with colleagues when I was part of book study groups with through the Center for Collaborative Support (a group of five school districts).  During this book studies, we would read and and discuss how we could apply our bi-weekly learning in our classrooms. Then the following week we would apply it to our instructional practices and report back what we did and how it went.  

At one time, we had started a video library which contained videos of teachers in our district as well as out of our district using good instructional practices.  This would help us to see how those instructional practices looked and sounded. It also provided an opening to present and share our own professional practices. We still have some of those videos available through our resources for Teacher/Principal Evaluation Program (TPEP), but otherwise the idea of a video library has disappeared over time.

Learning and Applied Practice

Throughout my master’s program, I have had several opportunities to present my professional practices with others.  The first being in my Action Research in a School Setting class when we presented our action research project to the class.   Then in my Survey of Instructional Strategies we created and shared professional learning presentations on various instructional strategies.  The topic I picked to investigate and share was Advance Organizers.  Additionally, in this class, we shared lesson plans as well as videos of that lesson plan in action,  each was based around a particular instructional strategy.  We then provided feedback others whose lesson plan and video we viewed.  For our final project in this class we provided a small group or whole-group professional training at our school.   Since we had lost some of our school-wide professional training hours due to weather, i presented information around advance organizers to the 6th grade social studies teachers.  During the summer, in both my Curriculum Design and Standard-Based Assessment class we shared and got feedback on our assignments from our colleagues.  Then the following fall quarter, in my Communication and Collaboration: Colleagues, Administrators and Community class we shared our project with others so they could see what we were working on as well as to give feedback.  Additionally, in fall quarter I took my Leadership in Education and as part of this class we were required to lead a discussion based on a given article. When I did my presentation, I introduced and used thinking maps as a way to help us understand the information.  Lastly, as we have been reflecting our our learning in our Teacher Leader Capstone class we have been sharing our reflections on the discussion boards so all can see our work and provide feedback as well as to provide a quick overview of an assigned  teacher leadership standard.   As can be seen throughout my master’s program I have had the opportunity to present my professional practices with my colleagues.

Issues Encountered/Problems of Practice Addressed

One of the challenges we have in presenting our professional practice for the review of colleagues is providing time to do so. As the years have gone by in my district we have had less and less time to observe each other in the classroom.   It is not the norm. We just don’t have the number of guest teachers available to do this. Additionally, at my  school there has been resistance by a few to having regular department meetings since there is a question of where it is in our contract.   To overcome this, when I was the 6th grade department lead I made my meetings optional and whoever shows shows. Also, some of our district directed time has been used for department meetings as the teacher leadership team has asked for it.   But, usually this time has come with a school wide department agenda.

Another concern that come to my mind as I think about developing my own exemplary teaching and encouraging exemplary teacher in others are how to work with “the resisters” as well as how to influence others so they want to take on the initiatives of our school district has asked rather than doing it out of compliance.   A way that I have seen to deal with this issue at my school is to have staff members share stories of how a practice has made a difference in their classrooms as it gets to staff member’s hearts. Another way is to have assigned tables with a teacher leader at each table during all staff professional trainings. By doing this the teacher leaders can share stories as well as take notes to be reviewed in order to keep things on track since they have already had the training.  Also, by pre-teaching the  teacher leaders you can have them help you predict what the resistance will be and how do we handle it.  Sometimes, it truly starts off with compliance, but eventually changes to “we do this because it works”.  After awhile you can build upon the past successes have have less resistance to the changes be asked.

How Presenting Professional Practice for the Review of Colleagues
is Supported by Research

When we present our professional practices for the review of our colleagues it forces us to look at our current instructional practices and see  what is going well and what we need to work on in our instructional practices.  And by observing our colleagues in action we are able to learn new strategies and well as to realize that sometimes we struggle with similar things.   As a result each is  willing to try new teaching strategies in their classroom and feels supported.   Additionally, by sharing our teaching practices with each other we speed up changes in our classrooms and school making  those changes more effective and sustainable. It also improves the chances that all students will be taught similar information, so what they learn will not depend upon the teacher they get which will improve overall state testing scores.

Overall Impact

By being “forced” to share my practices throughout this master’s program my comfort level in sharing my practices with colleagues for review has increased.  As I have been supporting teachers this year who are new to our district or teaching a new subject which I have taught before, I have been sharing my resources and presentations for them to use, edit or lose.  As a result, others have seen my teaching practices. I also have been sharing websites that I have been creating to support projects for a variety of classes with the person in my same position over at districts other middle school.  As a result I am finally starting to see her doing the same with me.

I hope to be able to do more professional development with my school’s staff as well as work one-on-one with teachers in the future.   I choose my master’s program with the hope that it would prepare me to and give me the resources I needed in order to move into this type of work and now we are at the end I recognize how it did just that.

References

Borko, H., Jacobs, J., Eiteljorg, E., & Pittman, M. E. (2008). Video as a tool for fostering
productive discussions in mathematics professional development. Teaching &
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Corcoran, C. A., & Leahy, R. (2003). Growing professionally through reflective practice.

Kappa Delta Pi Record, (1), 30–33.

Dean, C. B., & Marzano, R. J. (2012). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Hargreaves, A. & Fullan, M. (2013). The power of professional capital.  Journal of Staff
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Hattie, J. (2012). Visible learning for teachers: Maximizing impact on learning. New
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